


Wonderous Tails, Wondering Tales

by OmegaCaeli



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate lifetimes, Deja Vu, Deja vu for days, Drama & Romance, F/M, Gen, I don't know what I'm doing, Light Angst, Other, Rebirth, What if?, Wondrous Tails of Final Fantasy XIV (Tumblr Challenge)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmegaCaeli/pseuds/OmegaCaeli
Summary: Thancred Waters has crossed paths with the Warrior of Light, Trionfi Fortuna, many times before.Many lifetimes before, that is.[Meetings in Alternate Universes based on prompts from the Wondrous Tails Writing Challenge for my Warrior of Light. <3 Non submissions, just here for funsies and practice. Vague tie-ins to 'O Fortuna,' but you don't need to have read it for this one to make sense. :D ]Prompt 1: TemperingThe Universe where the Warrior of Light is a Primal
Relationships: Warrior of Light & Thancred Waters, Warrior of Light/Thancred Waters
Kudos: 8





	Wonderous Tails, Wondering Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Universe where the Warrior of Light is a Primal

~*~

**_She dreamt of a starshower, and a shard hit her eye,_ **

**_While staring at the scarlet sky_ **

**_And with it, a voice that sung_ **

**_Put a longing in her heart,_ **

**_And fire in her lungs._ **

**_She breathed out a wish._ **

**_'I want to meet you.'_ **

**_…but, not like this._ **

"Blast it!"

Thancred Waters, master of shadows for the Scions of Twilight, is absolutely furious with himself.

Racing through forest, leaping from branch to branch, he casts Haste on himself, doing his utmost to push himself to the brink, and then beyond that. He wasn't sure how much time he had left, but he's quite certain that he does not have much left.

It was the Lunar Felixas. Bundling up crystals by the thousands, pilfering and mining and stowing them away so quietly, so softly, and all the while carefully planting evidence to implicate the other beast tribes, and doing a very _frustratingly_ good job of side-tracking all of them. He would be impressed if he wasn't already chaffed at having the wool pulled over his eyes in his own territory. He should have caught it. Should have been more observant, but of course, he's not sure _why_ he volunteered to become point-man for Gra'dania and her forests.

 _Should have gone back to the sea, to Limia. Or, better yet, the desert! To Ulan Danah! Find out if flowers did grow in the sands out there!_ But, he made his choice already, and right now, he cannot choose but to just at least try. 

Luckily, he knows exactly where he's going. There's a wooden stage deep in the woods, and at the back of that stage, an altar. One that looked to be made of obsidian, that on full moons like this one, lined up just right, it looks like the sphere sat atop it. And there was filigree that spread out from the arch that rounded over it that made it look like the moon had wings, comprised of the night sky and the stars for its scales. It made for a simply gorgeous sight, if he said so himself. An excellent place for a late night date.

Too bad it was also where their Primal was also summoned. 

Closer now, he can hear the beat of the drum, the swelling of flutes and strings, the rising crescendo. The music is beautiful, truly, like twilight in and of itself over a sun-burned city, but this is neither the time nor place to admire it. The air is _thick_ with aether, and he knows it's not long before their ritual is complete and he'll have to rely again on their Warrior to fix the mess.

But, if he can stop it before hand, he will.

Just past the branches, he can see the light of the moon peaking through, sitting on the altar, the crystals strung around the wings, over the altar like Starlight garlands, pulsing with magic. He pushes forward, the voices of the Felixas prayers reaching him now, as he shoves through the foliage without care for the breaking of branches or the echoing of his arrival. He has to get there! He has to! 

The second he steps in the clearing, the music cuts. All is silent. Not even the wind rustles the leaves, nor the crickets speak.  
  
Then, all at once, every body drops like a stone. Instruments fall and shatter, one last exhale throughout, and each of them smiles softly, no matter the position they land in.

Standing in the sea of bloodless carnage, Thancred expects he is next, and he waits. He waits to drop, for death to claim him, but instead, there's a soft heat that fills his chest. Warm and inviting, it hovers just at his heart. It's accompanied by a floral sweetness that fills his senses, bright and gentle, overtaking the musk of moss and leaves. And with all that, the stones in the altar start to dissolve.

Bit by bit, they float and break, before coming together in new shapes. Flowers, roses, blue and glimmering, and butterflies, violet and fluttering. It's strange and gorgeous, and he can't help but stare in awe as they gather together in a mass at the front of the stage. Swirling and binding together, a massive aetheric cocoon forms, before it bursts just as soon as it appears.

And there she is.

Fortuna, the Lady of Luck and Caster of Mortal Lots. Primal of the Lunar Felixas.

So many, many malms tall did she float before him. Staring down at him with shock in those brilliant eyes, her left one bright verdant and her right a pale vermilion. Dark hair, long and twisted in curls, frame her heart-shaped face and flow out behind her, sapphire stars winking between onyx strands and blue roses weaved within. Swathed in a glittering robes of crisscrossing dark and light blue silk, revealing slender shoulders, and her waist accented by a dual-colored corset. A pair of butterfly wings sprouting from her back, swirling with galaxies and star clusters. In her arms, a book with a picture of a scale on one side and a wheel on the other.

And, of course, like those who called her, Fortuna was a Felixas, complete with dark fluffy ears and a winding tail that pinned and curled down as she caught sight of him.

Vaguely, Thancred thinks she looks like a giant fairy princess. Something out of the books of children, here to bring them sweet dreams and hope. The kind of girl he wouldn't mind courting.

_Too bad she's a Primal._

**_She dreamt of a starshower, and a shard hit her eye,_ **

**_Marked by destiny and mortals' cry._ **

**_A rope, a blade, an altar._ **

**_Their desperate plea, 'Save us._ **

**_Oh child of a star.’_ **

**_'Save me,' she choked,_ **

**_Bathed in crystals and prayer,_ **

**_Scarlet in her throat._ **

His daggers are in his hand- he's expecting a fight. He's expecting her to pounce upon him, the only one left standing, and yet... she regards him, briefly, with a strange sort of stress. A hint of reflection, of recognition, before it's suddenly gone and there's a melancholy there. She backs up slowly. Doesn't touch him, doesn't get anywhere near. Not out of fear for her life. No, of course not- she could end him in a heartbeat.

Instead, as soon as her back hits the altar, those eyes look around sadly at the fallen bodies around him.

**"I... I told them not to summon me. I told them not to."** She explains, but she doesn't speak, she _sings,_ her voice a lullaby that Thancred finds soothing rather than unnerving. He leans forward, even though her voice is the only sound in the room, echoing, encompassing. **"What was it that made them call out?"**

There's a heartbeat of silence. Then two. Realizing she's waiting for an answer, Thancred gulped.

"Th... The Empire."

**"... of course."** Fortuna sighs, clasping her book tighter to her chest. Misery. _Is it possible for Primals to be miserable?,_ he wonders vaguely. **"Of course it's always some empire. Of course it's always some army, or country, or single man... that insists on making mortals do such desperate things..."**

He cracks a smile. It's odd. Thancred can't believe he's having such a calm conversation with a Primal, and he can't help but quip. "You sound like you've seen this before."

**"You... could say that."** The smile Fortuna gives is small, but gorgeous. His breath catches. **"It's something that I... am very familiar with."**

"That makes two of us."

**_She dreamt of a starshower, and a shard hit her eye,_ **

**_Her pillow, smoke; Her bed, a pyre,_ **

**_Reborn again, but not as she wont,_ **

**_A gamble made,_ **

**_A gamble both won and lost._ **

**_Existence as a curse, as a balm,_ **

**_And she’s gone again, alone again_ **

**_Phantom scarlet on her palms._ **

“So...” He says, cautious. “What happens now? Do we fight? Or... or am I...?"

At his half-question, she visibly wilts.

**"Ahh... you are... already.... I'm sorry."** She curls in on herself. **“When... when I get summoned, all within a radius of... of my altar, whether... whether or not one wishes it, there is a flip of a coin. Either one will die, and f-ffffeed in to m-my form… or one will live, and… and be t-tempered. You... appear to have gotten here just in time to be a part of the gamble.”**

Thancred startles at the revelation, a hand coming up to his head. He doesn't _feel_ any different. He'd always assumed, based on what he'd seen from previous encounters with those lost souls that tempering was much more... painful. A lobotomy of one's mind, carefully destroying bits and pieces that made someone them, re-wiring and indoctrinating, till all that remained of the mortal husk was only to be put down.

Right now, all he felt was a slight headache, the warmth in his chest, the prevalent sweet scent in his nose, and the inability to tear his eyes too long from the lovely visage before hi-

_Oh._

A mirror is summoned and settled before him, and he sees his reflection. No longer are his eyes the usual hazel, his right one matches hers now. Though not glowing quite as bright, the pale rose hue is unmistakable. _And here, I thought it was just because she's actually quite cute that I couldn't stop staring. Perhaps I should have waited, and called for back-up.  
_

In his haste to solve the issue himself, he's now a part of it.

"Ahh. That _does_ pose a bit of a problem."

She winces. **"Sorry..."**

The mirror vanishes and Thancred finds himself settling back. Staring up at her. Contemplation. He puts his daggers away.

He knows he should go back. Tell them she was brought forth and is draining the land, albeit quite slowly. Tell them to end him because, despite his lucidity, he's tempered and unable to do it himself and is just giving Fortuna power and she's... she's...

There's a... rather veiled despondent light in her eyes, among a mix of other things. Fear. Pain. Loneliness. Resignation. Maybe whatever connection has been built between them in his new state is feeding her emotions into him, but Fortuna, in that moment, doesn't... seem like a Primal. She seems almost mortal herself. A lost young woman, a scared girl, waiting to be rejected.

_(and somewhere, in the back of his head, this feels both right and wrong, and he’s not sure why, but she’s so very familiar...)_

**_He dreamt soft dreams. Quiet, gentle dreams,_ **

**_Nothing that would cause him to stir._ **

**_No starshowers, no wishes, no scarlet_ **

**_And the only star in his eye is her._ **

Thancred makes his choice.

"If I may ask, my lady, why is one of your eyes pink?"

**"I... p-pardon?"** She startles, confused, but the melancholy is gone. Thancred can't help but grin.

"I'll never get a chance like this again, and most other Primals are more wont to be volatile." He settles down before her, craning his neck to do his utmost to meet her multi-colored eyes, leaning back his palms while keeping his carefree expression up. "So, I figured... why not get to know you a little? Ask questions that I can't normally... while we..." He exhales. "While we wait."

He waits for a moment, realization dawning on her face before she leans forward. A flash of glitter, and she is suddenly his size. Smaller, actually, but still dressed in the ridiculous cloud of cloth that puffs and drowns her lithe form as she clamors to sit before him.

**"Are..."** Casting him an uncertain look beneath her lashes , she he bites her bottom lip, and he has to fight the sudden urge to pull her to him to tease and worry it between his own. " **Are you sure?"**

"I can't very well leave such a lovely lady all by herself." A pretty flush spreads across her cheeks, and he feels a strange sort of pride at having made a goddess swoon. "My name is Thancred, by the way, Lady Fortuna. And I must say, if I am tempered, full glad that it is by such beautiful rose with so gentle and loving a hand."

**"I... I try.”** She holds her book close, her eyes, her voice, suddenly far off. A hand presses to her forehead. **_“_ I heard it once. Somewhere. No one should... die in pain. I... if there’s a chance someone becomes tempered, I don’t want them to... to suffer, so I try to... do what I can to soften my influence. I just wish I could do the... the same for those that d-don’t… don’t survive…"**

Her eyes stray to the bodies around them, each slowly dissolving in to glittering aether. A mist of stardust and life, and despite the morbidity of it all, the effect is devastating. Whether or not it's the indoctrination talking, she still looks more ethereal and radiant and like a heroine out of a romance novel, sitting there with the air shimmering around her. 

And that, combined with the way her eyes sparkled with the tears sitting therein _(who knew that such powerful beings could cry?),_ it's too much. He places a finger to her chin, and gently, softly, encourages her to turn from them. Bring her focus on to him, and only on him, gently tugging her close. She follows, carefully settling in his lap and hiding her face against his chest.

"Thank you. For trying." He smiles softly, petting her head. "That is much kinder than most mortals are capable of."

He wonders, briefly, why it feels so right to have a Primal in his arms like this, but realizes he doesn't really care, just so long as it's her.

The two of them sit in silence, waiting for the bodies to vanish from her sight. They both feel the moment it's just them, because she carefully looks up at him with a soft smile of her own.

**"I... I was mortal, once upon a time..."** She sings, **"I dreamt of a star shower. A piece fell and... hit my eye. And I've... I've been marked ever since."**

~*~ 

It's two days later, when he hadn't reported in, that Thancred greets his friends with a smile and an extravagant bow at the edge of the stage.

He holds a hand out to the woman beside him, introducing her as the Primal they had come to slay.

"Lady Fortuna, Lady of Luck." He winks at her, and drawing that pretty blush to her cheeks again, despite the melancholic situation. The entire time, Fortuna had opted to stay 'mortal sized,' (;fun sized,' he joked and she buried her face in her hands in embarrassment), and agreed to greet his allies this way when they arrived. "Lady Fortuna, might I introduce to you my companions and most illustrious friends, the Scions of Twilight and the Warrior of Order."

Fortuna dips low into a curtsy, hands grasping the edges of her gown, and spreading the cloth like glittering wings. " **How do you do, friends of Thancred. I am Lady Fortuna, and I welcome you to my... to my altar."**

He can see the shock, the questions in their eyes, the hesitation. None of them were expecting this, were prepared for this, clearly. He certainly wasn't, but he was making due pretty well, he'd thought. There's a few moments of silence, all of them staring before some nod in greeting. Then, business, as their de facto leader steps forward.

"Thancred..." The Warrior intones, face pinched, voice pained. "Are... are you-?"

"Indeed. This is my last mission." Thancred grinned, jovial even though he knows it hurts, the least he can do is see all of them off with a smile. He winks with his normal eye, keeping the pink one, the sign of his condition wide and open. "Though, I must say, there are certainly worse ways to go. But, since it's her, I don't mind. I just ask that you go easy on her, yeah? She might be a Primal, but she is still a lady.”

**“Not easy, no. Just... just do as you will, please.”** He's used to this by now, but he can't help but chuckle at the incredulous faces that stare at her. Odd to see a Primal actually _pouting_. **"I'll not have the man I accidentally t-t-tempered offer me softness in this."**

"And I say the woman that's seen enough unintentional death at her hands not suffer more, if I can help it. Easy, painless, and _quick,_ if you please!" He calls over his shoulder and, much to the surprise of their audience, he reaches over to tilt her head up gently towards him. Bringing her close, and the blush on her cheeks darkens becomingly, pressing a whisper to her temple. "And I promise, this is not the tempering talking, but you deserve so much better than this."

" **But-"**

"No buts. Together, and not an onze of anguish more for my Lady of Luck." He kisses her hair, leaning back and giving her his most charming smile, his most honest one. "I'll be right behind you, love."

For the barest of moments, there is defiance there. Ready to argue, ready to fight for him, but reasoning wins in this. There is no escaping her power, no breaking out of her tempering, not to find out in the meager time they have. The goddess sighs, nodding, and allowing him to lead, as he moves to embrace her from behind. She's short enough that he's able to rest his head rather comfortably on hers, wings at her back compressed for his comfort as he grins at his friends above her head. "Apologies. She's stubborn. But, yes. Easy, painless, and quick, my friends."

All of them hesitate. And he doesn't blame them. They knew the dangers of being in range of Primals without the Echo. They were prepared to do this for the soldiers and mercenaries that had been tempered, whether willing or unwilling, in the past without hesitation. That it was one of their own...

"What... what do we tell Filia?" The Warrior asks, Y'shtola stepping forward slowly, staff a glow in hand, a Sleep spell ready to go.

Below him, Fortuna whimpers quietly, but she clings fast to his arms, and he tightens around her in comfort. **  
**

He smirks. "Tell her to make me proud."

He closes his eyes just as the Repose hits.

And as he drifts off, his last thoughts are hers

**"I wish I could have met you in another life.**

**If... if someone out there is listening, please...**

**I want to meet him again."**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what I'm doing, lalalalaaaaaaaaa.
> 
> lunar felixas = my name if Keepers of the Moon were a beast tribe, like how lalafells = dwarves. But, like, y'know, I totally made it up. :D And the 'summoning song' is 'Twilight Over Thanalan', by the by.
> 
> /thumbsup
> 
> Ever thought about what your Warrior would be like as a Primal? It's kinda fun to think about. <3 XD


End file.
